You could call the 2025 Wards’ 10 Best Engines list a major changing-of-the-guard moment in automotive history. Last year, we only had one ICE powerplant, the 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 packed into the 1,064-horse Corvette ZR1 supercar. Everything else was a hybrid, or an electric powertrain (which is probably why the list was actually called the 10 Best Engines & Propulsion Systems).
Once upon a time, the joke was that an electric car could get you 30 miles on a single charge, and hit 60 mph in 28 seconds. The times aren’t just a-changin’, they’ve changed.
Wards’ Favorite Powerplants Are Mostly Electrified This Year
2025 – 2026 BMW M5 Sedan exteriorBMW
To start with, let’s run down the list real quick, and note which of these powerplants are electric, combustion, or hybrid.
- BMW’s 4.4L Turbocharged V8 PHEV – Hybrid
- Chevy’s 5.5L Twin-Turbo V8 – ICE
- Mercedes-AMG’s 3.0L Straight-Six Turbo PHEV – Hybrid
- Nissan Electric Propulsion System – Electric
- Lexus’ 3.4-Liter Turbocharged V6 Hybrid – Hybrid
- Lucid Electric Propulsion System – Electric
- Hyundai Electric Propulsion System – Electric
- Stellantis Electric Propulsion System – Electric
- Honda’s 2.0L Inline-Four Hybrid – Hybrid
- Ford’s 3.5L Turbocharged V6 Hybrid – Hybrid
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s five hybrids, four electrics, and a single, solitary ICE powerplant.
Comparing this to the previous four years, here’s how electrified the winners circle has been since 2021.
- 2021 – 80% EV and Hybrid
- 2022 – 70% EV and Hybrid
- 2023 – 70% EV and Hybrid
- 2024 – 80% EV and Hybrid
The list has been threatening to go fully electrified for years now, and who knows, 2026 could be the year it finally happens. We’ll have to wait until September to find out.
Wards Doesn’t Play Favorites With Its Favorites
2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Convertible exhaustJared Rosenholtz/CarBuzz/Valnet
Note that Wards doesn’t actually rank its favorites from one to 10. So it doesn’t have, for instance, a number one best engine of the year, nor did the last engine on the list just barely make the cut. It’s a 10-way tie for best engines, electric powerplants, and hybrid systems available in 2025.
You’ll also notice a mix of mainstream and performance systems on the list. The Nissan EV system’s flagship EV is the $29,990 Leaf, while the Lucid system is associated with luxury models like the Gravity Grand Touring, a $96,550 SUV rated at 828 hp. Would we rather drive a twin-turbo ‘Vette over a 168-horse electric Hyundai? Well, that’s a loaded question. Think of it this way: these engines and motors are among the best at what they do.
Wards’ selection process means that they’re not exactly filling quotas here. Wards isn’t looking for, say, three combustion engines, five hybrids, and two EVs. Wards is simply listing the 10 best powerplants available in a given year, and if the resulting list winds up favoring electrification, so be it. In other words, last year’s mostly-electrified list is significant specifically because it was anyone’s game, and nobody was receiving special treatment or benefiting from a pro-EV agenda.
There Were Some Landmark Engines On The List Last Year
2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 engine badge logoChevrolet
First off, props are due to the 5.5-liter Chevy V8 for the fact that it’s single-handedly keeping ICE on the list in 2026. Running down the specs on this beast, it’s easy to see why it made the cut.
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Engine Specs
Engine
5.5-Liter Twin-Turbo 8-Cylinder
Power
1,064 hp
Torque
828 lb-ft
0-60
2.5 Seconds
The ZR1 will have your accountant on the phone asking you what you think you’re doing, starting off at $197,700 at the entry-level, but look, this engine is a piece of history. There are more powerful combustion engines out there, but, for the most part, we’re talking hand-built one-offs and limited-run models that will cost you a million dollars and up.
The BMW Was The Star Of The Show
2025 – 2026 BMW M5 Sedan exteriorBMW
We mentioned that Wards does not rank its favorite engines from first to tenth place, but there’s an argument to be made that the BMW 4.4 was the star of the show last year.
BMW M5 Engine Specs
Engine
4.4-Liter Twin-Turbo Hybrid 8-Cylinder
Power
717 hp
Torque
738 lb-ft
0-60
3.2 Seconds
The combustion engine in the M5 produces 577 hp on its own, with the electric motor contributing 194 horses to the total.
Both the Chevy and the BMW engine are worth highlighting as they represent a couple of key points worth making. Chevrolet proves that ICE can still be competitive, but you really need to go above and beyond in order to make the list with no electric motor helping you along. BMW, on the other hand, offers us a look at what most high-end propulsion systems will look like going forward.
Put simply, it makes no sense to sell a 577-horse luxury performance car when an electric motor will get you up to 717 hp without burning any extra fuel. In fact, the ICE version of the Chevy 5.5 isn’t even its most powerful iteration. The ZR1X adds electrification for 1,250 hp and 973 lb-ft of torque in all-wheel drive.
Combustion isn’t going anywhere any time soon, there will always be purists who insist on unassisted gas power, and there will always be a market for everything from twin-turbos to superchargers and naturally-aspirated V8s. But, if we’re talking about putting up the biggest possible performance numbers, combustion power alone is leaving a lot of chips on the table. Horsepower may not be everything, but four-figure power output looks really good in the ad copy.
What Does This Mean For Mainstream Vehicles?
2026 Nissan Leaf front 3/4 angle in blue while parkedJared Rosenholtz/CarBuzz/Valnet
The Wards’ 10 Best list isn’t necessarily the best way to take the auto industry’s temperature. Wards usually includes a number of mainstream engines and motors in the list, but there’s no fixed quota, and this year’s list is 50% luxury cars and high-end performance models.
Wards is looking not only at performance numbers, but at noise and harshness levels, as well, and Wards is looking for completely new, or heavily revised engines. That is, you’re not scoring a Wards’ 10 Best Engines placement five years in. Ultimately, the list isn’t going to reflect the makeup of your average parking lot.
Wards’ 10 Most Average Doesn’t Have The Same Ring To It
2026 Nissan Leaf ExteriorNissan/James Lipman
It’s called Wards’ 10 Best for a reason. If it was a better overview of the automotive industry at any given time, it’d be called Wards’ 10 Most Average, and nobody would read it because that’d be a really boring list. What we’re saying is that you shouldn’t take the electrification of Wards’ 10 Best Engine list to mean that electrification is taking over American highways. In 2025, roughly 20% of new vehicles sold in the US were electrified, and that number is nowhere close to the 90% ratio seen in the Wards’ 10 Best list.
Not that we wouldn’t encourage you to go electric. We won’t shut up about the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, in particular, offering some of the most fun available for the price. Hybridification is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid, for that matter, and the American public has largely decided to simply go with the flow, pushing the hybrid-only Camry to the top of the charts with 317,185 sales last year.
But, the trickle-down from performance and luxury models to the mainstream can be slow. EVs and hybrids are increasingly becoming the norm in high-end segments, but the top 10 sellers for 2025 are still comprised of a lot of combustion-based models like the Ford F-150 and the Chevy Equinox.
That being said, the Honda CR-V made fourth place last year with more than half of its total sales being hybrids. So the march of progress may be slow, at times, but that doesn’t mean it’s not inevitable.
Sources: Wards, BMW, Chevrolet.
